San Francisco Symphony Oboist Who Collapsed Onstage Dies

Compiled by DAVE ITZKOFF

February 28, 2013

William Bennett, the principal oboist of the San Francisco Symphony, who suffered a brain hemorrhage and collapsed in midperformance on Saturday night, died on Thursday the orchestra announced. He was 56. “I am heartbroken by the tragic death of Bill Bennett, which has left a terrible, sad emptiness in the hearts of the whole San Francisco Symphony family,” Michael Tilson Thomas, the orchestra’s music director, said. “Bill was a great artist, an original thinker and a wonderful man.”